A moral alliance

PAUL “CONCON” LAUS, loyal vice to Governor Mark Lapid has been pirated, err, appropriated by the Third Force.
So it seems, from a number of white-ribboned sports utility vehicles plastered with the now too familiar cherubic face along with the beatific visage of Among Ed.
A number of houses along the route of my morning walk in Villa Victoria long posted with photos of the “alternative moral choice” now sported Concon posters too, sans Lapid.
There too are tarpaulins of Concon hanging from the facade of commercial establishments owned by Among Ed die-hard supporters along MacArthur Highway in the business district of Dolores, City of San Fernando.
No, Concon has not abandoned Lapid. Not by any means. He is too good and too faithful to betray his friend and partner. He makes a Damon to Lapid’s Pythias, where their personal relationships are concerned.
Yes, Concon has been “adopted” by the Third Force, albeit unofficially. So claimed someone who bore a striking resemblance to Engineer Marni Castro.
The deadringer for the flood czar of the City of San Fernando and the field marshall of the Third Force went on an exhaustive and exhausting peroration of a “divinely-inspired” alliance between Among Ed and Concon “founded on moral uprightness and grounded on political purity.”
“They indeed answer our call of ‘Yes to good Kapampangan leaders,” he enthused.
Of unquestioned integrity, Concon – he said – served as a deodorizer to Lapid, heavily mucked with the quarry anomalies: “And ineffective at that, given the extent of Lapid’s moral decay.” Alleged, I cautioned him.
He feared “Lapid’s stench may even rub off on Concon and affect his innate innocence.” Careful now, I reminded him.
“By his association with Lapid, the people may think Concon benefited too from the quarry scam, and thus deprive him of their vote.” Definitely a devastating proposition most unfair, grossly unjust to Concon, I concurred.
Hence, Concon had to be “delivered from the clutches of evil to the fold of the good.” Thus, his adoption by the moral legions of Among Ed. A most rational move, I agreed.
I sought out radioman Deng Pangilinan, Concon’s campaign strategist, for some reactions.
He had the smug smile of a Cheshire cat that just ate a canary: “We are bound to Mark in Lakas-CMD. But we cannot prevent people from the other camps, not just Among Ed’s mind you, from carrying Concon’s cause. Are we to tell them to stop putting Concon’s posters on their vehicles, on their fences or on their buildings? That is not only bad politics, that is plainly and simply stupid.”
In Deng’s visualization, the sudden surge of Concon in opinion polls lately – “less than ten percent within striking distance of the incumbent” – was caused in part by the support of the Third Force.
“It matters not who support us. The important thing is for Concon to win. And we are almost there.”
Supreme confidence, yes. Impossible, no. With the depth and expanse of Deng’s vision in things political and otherwise – proven with his quartering of the Boking Morales campaign for unprecedented four terms – Concon winning the vice governorship may not be but a matter of blind faith.

The Third Farce

CLAIMING that theirs is the “moral alternative” that represented the good in a choice among evils for the Pampanga governorship, the so-called Third Force arrogated unto itself a monopoly of whatever morality that still obtained in this province bedeviled by the twin scourges of corruption – the pilfered quarry collections and jueteng.
As if it were a matter of birthright, the Third Force seized for itself the Reject-Evil-Choose-Good pastoral statement of the venerable Apu Ceto, exacting from the faithful their full acquiescence, if not their complete obedience as good Catholics. No matter the Third Force candidate’s perceived disobedience of the archbishop when he allowed himself to be pushed into the secular world of electoral politics.
There indeed is a holier-than-thou air about the campaign of Among Ed, the predominance of white – the traditional color of purity -- in the election paraphernalia serving as a dead give-away.
“Yes to a good Kapampangan leader” or some such declaration under the benign visage of Among Ed impacts in the mind of the beholder that, indeed, no candidate other than the priest is good, morally good.
Thus, a moral crusade is Among Ed’s campaign. Thus, a moral force is the Third Force rallying behind him.
This is neither to demoralize nor to demonize this Third Force but I see relativity in their morality. And more.
When Vice Governor Yeng Guiao was crying plunder over the loss of tens of millions in the quarry collections, where were these moral warriors?
Yeng raised a burning moral issue, but nobody came. Even if only to hear him out. Despite appeal letters sent to parish churches and to the Social Action Center of Pampanga, the acknowledged birthplace of the Third Force.
Where were these sentinels of morality too when the then Ex-Mayor Roy David and journalist Ody Fabian, now both deceased, and this columnist were burning the airwaves with exposés of the quarry scam? Where were they when our group was ambushed right at the very gate of station DWGV, resulting to the death of three of our confederates?
Did we get even just a whisper of sympathy from them?
You know where some of them were then?
Partaking of the very thing they are now condemning – as quarry operators, truckers or haulers, as “contactors” or suppliers at the Lapid Capitol.
When Archbishop Oscar Cruz was being grounded like beef at the Senate for his moral stand against the evils of illegal gambling, where were these moral guardians?
When Senator Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. made the moral indictment of Pampanga as the “Vatican of jueteng,” where were these legions of morality?
Did we hear even but a murmur of protest from them?
You know where a number of your priests were then?
Benefiting from the very thing they are now denouncing as evil – receiving bulging red ampao after concelebrating Mass for the lord’s and his lady’s birthdays; gorging on lechon baka provided by the lord to cap their annual retreat; in endless acts of solicitation if not supplication to the lord for the construction or rehabilitation of churches, for the retablo, for the annual sabbatical to the USA.
A moral cause they did not find in Yeng, in Roy and Ody, in Apung Oscar and in Nene. A moral crusade they now embrace in Among Ed. A much delayed epiphany for the Third Force?
There is more than the aspect of relativity here. There is gross hypocrisy here – a farce of a force.
“Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.” Famous last words, apropos our time, from the French humanist Francois Rabelais.

Leap from faith

MAGLAYUNAN ya ing pari, karing kalupa nang pari.
The priestly confederation, nay, communion so hallowed in that Capampangan adage sounds hollow vis-à-vis the current of events in the wake of the entry of the Rev. Fr. Eddie Tongol Panlilio in the gubernatorial fray.
Contrary to earlier public perception that it was the Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio David, auxiliary bishop, who pushed Among Ed to run, the erudite Randy David, in one of his Inquirer columns, revealed his brother bishop “up to the last moment” tried to dissuade the priest from running. To no avail, as it turned out.
Then in both print and TV interviews, the outspoken prelate, Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz, arguably the top canon lawyer of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, declared the priest had “nothing to return to, whether he won or lost.”
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines likewise went to press with its disapproval of priests entering electoral politics, standing firm on the ground of Church and State dichotomy, and mayhaps in fear of renewed charges of Church politicization.
Then, a day before Maundy Thursday when priests renew their vows in the Chrism Mass, the Most Rev. Paciano B. Aniceto issued a seven-point guideline for the clergy to disengage from partisan politics, exercise fairness and focus on the education of voters.
On Among Ed, Apu Ceto disclosed: “We dissuaded him (from running) and did all we can to help him see all the possible consequences of his candidacy for governor…but we respect his personal decision.”
As there were but dissuasions, and not direct orders, it cannot be said – strictly and technically – that Among Ed broke his vow of obedience. (For the uninitiated, diocesan priests take the vows of celibacy – being unmarried, and obedience to Church authority at their ordination. Missionary priests take the added vow of poverty. So nothing out of character, moreso immoral, about your parish priest driving the latest SUV or owning large tracts of land, or maintaining a fat bank account, or engaging in commerce and trade.)
The absence of direct orders notwithstanding, the assiduity with which the bishops tried to talk Among Ed out of his decision already amounted to a command, albeit unexpressed.
Thus, a number of his peers, and the laity too, felt Among Ed defied his elders. Especially given the self-effacing Apu Ceto, who has never known to impose on his Church underlings, or on anybody for that matter.
A priest, also a canon lawyer, who was my junior at the minor seminary, held that same view when I chanced upon him at SM Pampanga.
“There will not be any dispensation. It will be a suspension that will be imposed,” he said, affirming that Among Ed did indeed commit disobedience.
I have yet to see that suspension in print though.
In a previous column on Among Ed, I expressed the apprehension that polarization might set in not only among the clergy but also among the laity.
It already has.
I have heard both priests and lay people passionately defending “on equally moral grounds” their decision to support the so-called bedeviled candidates, vis-à-vis the acclaimed “moral alternative” that is Among Ed.
A choice between two evils – even opting for the lesser one – is no choice. So said the moralists among us, heralding the entry of Among Ed as the choice of good.
But even as Apu Ceto appealed: “As a sign of respect for him, we should avoid making derogatory remarks about his person and decision,” already skeletons are being dug out of Among Ed’s closet.
This is more than your usual TV reality show. This is politics, in all its obnoxious reality.
Last Monday, I met Among Ed at the GV station. He barely recognized me at first – what with my long hair and the number of years since we last saw each other. We embraced like the brothers that we are.
Some kumustahan about the family, especially his godson, some small talk on the campaign – he chuckled when I told him I am too politically polluted to join his crusaders – and then I wished him the very best.
I can only hope – and pray – that he was right in treading the road not taken, to cite the poet Robert Frost.
It takes no small amount of deep reflection, of introspection, of discernment to arrive at a decision of leaving over twenty-five years of priesthood just to pursue what he called a “higher vocation.”
It can only be a leap of faith. Or must it be a leap from faith? For, can there be a vocation higher than being an alter Christus?
My seminary formation is shaken. My faith is polarized.







He deemed the homonymous mediation and meditation as synonymous.

Mangio maculated

A carefully-cultivated immaculate image of saintliness, high integrity, professionalism and corporate success gets suddenly spattered with the muck of fraud, falsification, and tax evasion.
What has Nestor Mangio – once top headman of all Philippine architects, brilliant developer of uppity Lakeshore estate, newly-designated chair of the Clark International Airport Corporation – done to deserve this malignity?
And what has Marionette, his beloved wife and fellow servant-leader of a Couples-for-Christ type ministry, done to merit this same sordid maculation?
Ah, what pain and suffering await men and women of good will! Ah, what agonies God gives his beloved!
A conspiracy with Lorna Salangsang-Dee, register of deeds, and her deputy Enrique Basa, defrauding the government of some P68 million in taxes screamed the allegation that predicated the complaint against the Mangios before the Ombudsman – on the criminal aspect, and the Land Registration Authority – on the administrative part.
Sometime in early 2004, parcels of land contiguous to the Lakeshore development site in Mexico town were transferred to the name of the Mangio couple, the registration signed by Dee, the deed of sale signed by both Mangios as buyers and Robert David as seller, and duly notarized by one Atty. Crescente Caladiao of the City of San Fernando, Pampanga on February 2, 2004.
What transpired was the usual, regular process in the conveyance of a real property from seller to buyer. So what’s irregular, moreso criminal, here?
Everything. So claimed the complainant, Robert David, once Pampanga board member now aspiring to the city council of San Fernando and the acknowledged broker of the SM Pampanga and Robinsons Starmills mega land deals.
David claimed that his signature was forged in the 2004 deed of sale – a meritorious statement given the fact that he was out of the country at the time of the consummation of the alleged sale.
A certification from the Bureau of Immigration, signed by one Elias Olasiman, affirms David’s contention: He left the country through the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on PR307 through Hongkong for the USA on August 10, 2003 and returned on board NWO19 through Narita from San Francisco only on March 3, 2004.
Unless David has been gifted with the power of bi-location – reserved only to special saints – his signing the deed of sale in the City of San Fernando in 2004 is an impossibility. It is verily outside the human domain. It could only be an act of God, if not a scheme of the Devil.
Cognizant of Mangio’s haloed character – the effect of the transference of the transcendence of John Paul II in all those photo ops the architect had with the sainted pope – we can only take his word as gospel truth.
So it is David then who speaks with a forked tongue?
David did indeed sign the deed of sale here, even if he claimed – and the BI affirmed – that he was out of the country at the time. For there is nothing impossible with God.
There was irregularity too in the notarization of the deed of sale, cried David.
Atty. Caladiao “was not a commissioned Notary Public for the year 2004 for and in the City of San Fernando” certified Atty. Marlyds L. Estardo-Teodoro, acting clerk of court of the Regional Trial Court, Third Judicial Region, City of San Fernando, Pampanga.
Some notoriety in the notary, eh? Just can’t resist some pun there.
An unauthorized notary notarizing a deed of sale: a misdeed, in human terms. But, again, given Mangio’s saintly circumstances, this may well be God working in His usual mysterious ways.
Okay, infidels, is not Mangio, being a man of God, deserving of all the support from Him? The worker in the vineyard of the Lord deserves his pay, so the Good Book says. To that, we believers can only ejaculate “Amen.”
What most appropriate time than this Holy Week for the passion of Mangio to unfold. Mangio Agonistes. Ah, truly blessed his he who shares the suffering of the Lord.
For as He Himself promised at the cross – “You shall be with me in Paradise.” Oops, teka lang. Di ba magnanakaw ang pinagsabihan nun?